North East Medical Services Launches Epic MyChart in Traditional and Simplified Chinese to Empower Patients to Engage with their Healthcare
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – North East Medical Services (NEMS), in close collaboration with Epic, will be the first nonprofit community health center in the United States to provide Epic’s MyChart, an online health portal, for patients in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Epic, a company that develops software for healthcare organizations worldwide, developed the software to offer both Simplified and Traditional Chinese in MyChart whereas NEMS completed the translations. This linguistically appropriate online health portal will improve patient outcomes for some of NEMS’ limited-English proficient patients in the Bay Area by allowing tens of thousands of NEMS’ monolingual Chinese patients to engage in their healthcare online by viewing test results, scheduling appointments, checking in electronically, sending messages to providers, requesting a medication refill, and more. This new version of MyChart online health portal will go live in mid-September.
NEMS, a federally qualified health center based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is one of the largest community health centers in the United States targeting the medically underserved Asian population. With clinics in San Francisco, Daly City, and San Jose, NEMS offers comprehensive healthcare services to over 68,000 patients, a majority of whom are uninsured, low-income, and prefer to be served in a language other than English. As 90% of its patients identify as Asian, NEMS prioritizes providing linguistically competent and culturally sensitive health care services.
“NEMS has always been a leader in providing health care to limited-English proficient populations,” said Rachel Koh, Chief Operating Officer at NEMS. “I am proud to announce that we are furthering this commitment by launching MyChart in Simplified and Traditional Chinese. We were one of the first community health organizations in the nation to provide linguistically competent and culturally diverse health care to the Bay Area community, and we are continuing this tradition by pioneering this new program. I am proud that NEMS continues to be a leader in providing equity and accessibility in health care.”
“To help their patients better understand and engage with their care in the language they’re most comfortable with, NEMS translated hundreds of thousands of words into both Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese in MyChart,” said Andy Meyer, NEMS Implementation Executive at Epic. “This commitment to their patients and providing accessible care is part of what makes NEMS such an important part of the community it serves.”
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ABOUT NEMS
North East Medical Services (NEMS) is one of the largest non-profit community health centers in the United States targeting the medically underserved population of the San Francisco Bay Area. NEMS offers comprehensive health care services to a variety of patients, a majority of whom are low-income, access Medicaid, and are limited English proficient. NEMS providers and staff offer linguistically-competent and culturally-sensitive services in many languages and dialects other than English, including Cantonese, Mandarin, Toishan, Vietnamese, Burmese, Tagalog, Spanish, and Hindi. NEMS operates 22 clinical service delivery sites in San Francisco, Daly City, and San Jose. For more information, please visit www.nems.org.
ABOUT EPIC
Founded in a basement in 1979 with three half-time employees, Epic develops software to help people get well, help people stay well, and help future generations be healthier. To learn more, visit www.epic.com.
